


softcore science for small souls

by clow



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - MAMA (Music Video), Canon Universe, M/M, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10632990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clow/pseuds/clow
Summary: Kyungsoo leaves a notebook behind and jumps into the tracks, betting everything on world sixty-one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Line for beta-ing, and kudos to Yue and Lo, as usual.
> 
> Inspired by [mumford & son's _believe_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6SkvErFEE).
> 
> **warnings** : angst, implied character deaths, suicidal intentions.

Kyungsoo left his notebook – on a bench in a park, after feeding some of the pages to unsuspecting pigeons – before he headed down into the subway station and took the jump from world sixty.

It was a quick one. He didn't take too much time preparing himself mentally. He stepped into the tracks right when the metal head of an incoming train came along. His vision distorted, nausea kicked in, and then he was flung into a roller coaster portal. Two seconds later, he landed in the gap world with a flip and topple, right at the feet of his travel agent who was busy munching on blue apples with a nonchalant look on his face.

"Quick trip," his agent commented. "Not a good world, huh?"

Kyungsoo shrugged, a groan escaping him as he recovered from the tumble. "Whatever."

The agent turned around and summoned a large book with a flick of his wrist. "Didn't find what you were looking for, huh?"

"No."

"How bad was it this round?"

"I don't know. I couldn't find him. Same old," Kyungsoo said, flat and successive. He closed his eyes and ran a hand in his hair. He was exhausted.

"You searched the yellow pages? Maybe he'll turn up a bit later too—"

Kyungsoo looked away. "—No." He was using the I-don't-feel-like-fucking-talking tone, so his agent let the topic go.

"Alright, alright," his agent said. "Just give me your notebook so I can stamp it and process your memories from world… sixty, was it?"

Kyungsoo shook his head. "I left it there."

His agent stopped in his steps and turned back. "You what?"

"I left my notebook there. I'm done travelling," Kyungsoo said.

His travel agent's fawn ears drooped instantly.

"I'm sorry, Luhan," Kyungsoo whispered.

"I'll just— I'll go get something to drink. Something strong," Luhan murmured.

 

 

"You're sure about this?" Luhan asked. Their glasses of blue apple cider were half empty.

"Yeah," Kyungsoo mumbled. "I'm sorry." Kyungsoo dipped his head, and then added, "I'll miss you."

"I mean," Luhan squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed his cheekbones and then sighed heavily. "I mean, you… you realise you'll be gradually losing the memories of the worlds you've travelled?"

"Yeah…"

"Including world zero?"

Kyungsoo gulped down the last of his drink. It stung in his throat before bubbling down.

"As in, it'll start with the world where you came from and you'll forget about why you even came out in the first place—"

"I know, Luhan. I know the rules," Kyungsoo said. "I know what happens when I go without my notes."

Luhan tried to fight down a sob. "Well. Alright. I just wanted to make sure. You know. I'll miss you. You're my favourite traveller."

Kyungsoo smiled weakly. "Well, you're my favourite deer-hybrid agent."

"I'm the only deer-hybrid agent you will ever know Kyungsoo, that hardly makes me feel special."

 

 

Luhan levitated off the ground. "Ready?"

Kyungsoo nodded. Luhan had asked that for the millionth time now. 

His agent summoned a subway train wagon mid-air with the snap of his fingers. 

"Bye, Luhan," Kyungsoo said, feeling small on the open field as he stared up at the floating train car. 

"Bye, Kyungsoo," Luhan whispered, before the train dropped onto his favourite traveller with the impact of a meteor.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo crashed into world sixty-one with a jolt. 

 

The light was blinding and he was drowned in sweat. He winced and covered his eyes. He tried to understand what was going on. 

Slowly, indistinct screams filled his ears, so indistinct they were like white noise. About a split second later, he realised that he was holding a microphone. Realised hat he was on a large stage.

The next things he noticed were the faces of two people who looked familiar to him, standing close on stage, waving enthusiastically at a general direction in the faceless crowd.

 

It took him around a day to figure out that he was in a Korean pop idol group under some big entertainment company. 

It took him another day to figure out that the Luhan in this world was completely unaware of the deer hybrid Luhan he knew from the transit world.

However, he couldn't quite figure out where he'd seen the other person before.

He wondered if it had to do with someone from world zero. 

It started to dawn on him that he couldn't quite remember anything from world zero to five anymore. It upset him enough that he couldn't recall the first conversation he had with his travel agent, but when he realised he also couldn't remember what his main purpose was already, he found himself stopping in his tracks and staring down at his feet, his mind going completely blank.

Two minutes later, he would try to convince himself that it was okay to forget. These were the game rules, after all.

 

 

He got along with the second person. He was called Park Chanyeol. A gangly and chirpy guy who was a head taller than he was. He exuded a sunny and bright aura that made Kyungsoo smile and laugh more than he thought he ever could – considering all the things Kyungsoo had gone through, considering the number of times he had to jump in front of a train or a large truck with depleted hope.

Apparently they were good friends before Kyungsoo arrived to world sixty-one. They had train rides together back when they were trainees. They always had meals together. Takoyaki after practices. They shared a lot of interests even though the current Kyungsoo still had to catch up with everything he liked and disliked in this world.

Not that it ever differed much. But he always found something new – perhaps things he would have liked later on if he had stuck with world zero.

 

 

Kyungsoo also got close to Luhan. He chatted with him on a daily basis via _Kkt_. Sadly, since Luhan was in a different sub-unit, they didn't get to talk face-to-face that much. And if they were both present somewhere, they were likely on a stage and had to follow a script. 

Luhan wasn't all that different from the Luhan he had known in the transit world. It wasn't exactly a surprise though, only that Kyungsoo found himself pondering over the logistics behind transit world agents. Could they exist in parallel worlds they supposedly guarded? Did _he_ know he was a guardian, an agent, in the gaps between universes? Kyungsoo had never met Luhan in the other worlds, at least not to his memory. This was new. 

It was interesting food for thought for whenever Kyungsoo wanted to zone out for a while.

"You've been staring at me a lot lately. I know I have a pretty face but your scrutiny is starting to creep the hell outta me," Luhan told Kyungsoo before proceeding with picking his nose.

 

 

Kyungsoo kept tabs with the number of worlds he was starting to forget. Many times he gave in to the urge of jotting notes, archiving the memories he still had of later universes he'd visited. But he would quickly crumble the notes even if he'd just written two words and a number.

"Luhan. Transit. Five point five," Luhan read out loud one day, after fishing out a piece of paper in the bin. "The fuck is this." Luhan squashed the note in a fist and threw it away without second thought. He then found another one. "Yixing. Nurse. Ten."

Yixing blinked from his spot on the couch. "Am I supposed to understand that?"

"I think it's someone's kinky fantasy," Luhan snickered.

Kyungsoo – who was sat on the floor – hid his face behind his hands and sighed.

But two heartbeats later, he realised he couldn't remember anything from world ten.

 

 

Notes didn't mean anything if they weren't written down in the transit world. This fact only encouraged Kyungsoo to take the liberty to write more of them — just to alleviate the stress without changing his fate. It was like a little Hansel and Gretel game, except he wasn't looking for his way back. He was just trying to keep himself distracted. 

"Baekhyun. Pregnant. Twenty-one," Chanyeol read aloud. 

_Whatever that note means_ , Kyungsoo thought with a roll of his eyes.

"I heard my name!" Baekhyun screeched from the other end of the dorm, and came storming into Chanyeol and Kyungsoo and Jongin's room like a tornado nobody asked for. 

"You didn't tell me you were knocked up!" Chanyeol exclaimed, evidently amused, laughing with his entire body, shoulders shrugged up as if to follow the upturned corners of his mouth.

Kyungsoo exhaled slowly.

"Excuse me?" Baekhyun deadpanned. But of course, being Byun Baekhyun, he glanced down at his own tummy for a split second in self-doubt, and Jongin, who had been a silent audience, cracked into wheezing laughter.

 

 

Chanyeol found many more notes. Kyungsoo had left a lot of them in their room after all. (Jongin never found any because he was always sleeping when they got back.)

"Kris. Firefighter. Twenty-five."

Chanyeol and Kris were really close friends. They were both tall and dorky. Although Kris projected a debonair and classy kind of look, he was as loud and crude and funny as Chanyeol. 

Only this duo could have come up with _roll like a buffalo_ in a song about natural satellites.

Kyungsoo liked hanging out with Kris too. He liked teasing him. He'd poke Kris all the time on stage. Pinch him, and whenever Kris turned to eye him, he'd just use his heart-shaped smile and he'd be forgiven. At most he'd get his cheek pinched affectionately. 

Kris was nice like that. 

In another world, Kyungsoo was certain he and Kris were good friends. Maybe in this world too.

 

 

It was a colder mid-May night. 

They came back to the dorms, completely devastated. 

Chanyeol stormed into the room with so much anger it was palpable. He started scrambling through drawers, looking for something, his gaze rancorous though held low. Kyungsoo watched. Jongin couldn't take it anymore and walked out the room, excusing himself for fresh air.

Chanyeol brandished a note.

"Kris. Firefighter. Twenty-five," he read again, fire in his eyes though there were tears waiting to be shed. 

 

 

"Soo, can you predict the future?"

"What?" Kyungsoo deadpanned.

"You wrote those notes, right? They're in your handwriting. I discovered this one twenty-five days ago. And firefighter. Fire is my superpower..."

"…"

"Don't ignore me."

"…"

"Kyungsoo."

"…"

"Kyungsoo."

"…"

" _Kyungsoo_."

"…"

"Soo."

"…"

"Kyungsoo please."

"…"

"I won't—"

"…"

It was an utter coincidence that Kris left _twenty-five_ days after Kyungsoo wrote the note. 

 

 

Kyungsoo couldn't remember how the game worked anymore. It was losing structure in his mind. The logistics started to appear illogical.

He forgot the worlds up to forty now. They were slipping fast, falling off from the edge. The worlds started to blend together. Everything was a whirl, everything was a cyclone at the periphery of an unbordered ocean.

Kyungsoo liked Kris a lot. He wondered why they couldn't make it through in this world. Wondered why Kris had to quit the group, just like that – simple and clean, without even saying good-bye. 

 

 

Kyungsoo looked around for more notes. His desk was disordered because he'd overturned all of his drawers. He wanted to look for more Kris-related ones from thirty-six worlds ago. He wasn't sure why he needed to find the notes — they didn't mean much, right? But he wanted to know what Chanyeol meant by prediction. He wondered if they _were_ , indeed, predictions.

He only managed to find one more. It said that Kris had a really good and close friend who died in a fire. 

That was it. And it didn't really help alleviate Kyungsoo's solemn distress.

 

 

Kyungsoo didn't know what to tell Chanyeol.

Would he believe him if he told him he'd travelled through time and space? Regularly? For over god knows how many years? Time was distorted every time Kyungsoo respawned in the transit world, so it wasn't like he could really tell. It wasn't like it was an important detail anyway. He could be an old and dying soul and it made absolutely no difference.

Kyungsoo was starting to _not_ believe in it too. 

How could he, when every memory slipped away the second he turned around to look at them straight?

 

 

Chanyeol unfollowed Kris on every social media he used and deleted all the photos of them together in his camera roll. During the day, Chanyeol had a face of someone who had either killed someone or got killed by someone. He scared off the staff, scared off the rookies, made an intern spill coffee and panic. Some other members apologized for his attitude, and some kept mum.

Only Kyungsoo and Jongin heard his tears at night.

 

 

Kyungsoo stopped writing notes down. He had to pass a few nights with his hands constantly trembling, but it was far better than answering questions he couldn't even begin to answer.

Chanyeol and he got along better afterwards, but he wasn't sure if there was a causal relation between the two things.

Kyungsoo would cuddle with Chanyeol to sleep sometimes, when they marathoned anime shows together. They would hang around a bit more, have coffee, small talks, big talks. It was all becoming more and more natural. Kyungsoo started wanting to care about Chanyeol much more than ever. And even though it couldn't undo any wrongs, it felt right.

 

 

"You've been acting strange ever since that – I can't remember which stage it was, but you forgot your lines halfway on the stage."

"How was I strange?" Kyungsoo looked up at Chanyeol.

"I dunno," Chanyeol leaned back in his seat, thinking hard. "Well, not to sound a little self-obsessed, but… you looked at me less? Oh hey, that rhymed…"

Kyungsoo eyed Chanyeol. Chanyeol cleared his throat.

"It's just. I find that it's harder for me to read you lately. You seem to be drifting off a lot."

"The others say you read me the best," Kyungsoo responded.

"Yeah, but… nowadays I look at you, and I have no idea what you're thinking. Not that I really have to know, but I do feel like I'm... not there. At all. And considering we were – _are_ – the bestest of friends, it's disheartening," Chanyeol exhaled deeply before continuing, "and then there was this weird period of time when you started writing prophetic … _transcripts_. Notes. Whatever. Like, what was that? Though… I guess you haven't really written any after I confronted you about it."

Kyungsoo bit his lower lip.

 

 

"Have you ever considered that I just might not be thinking much?" Kyungsoo suggested.

"That could mean too many things and I'd be even more worried?" Chanyeol said. They were walking back from the convenience store. It was late at night.

Kyungsoo's lips pressed into a thin line, and then he looked up at the sky.

"Okay. I promise I'll try to tell you everything I'm thinking and we'll see how it goes," Kyungsoo lied.

"I don't know if I could believe that," Chanyeol responded.

Kyungsoo chuckled lightly. "I personally think you read me really well."

 

 

Kyungsoo thought of Chanyeol a lot more than usual. He wondered if he could ever read Chanyeol the way Chanyeol could so easily read him. 

He started to understand that he couldn't. And it was disheartening.

 

 

"Soo, I love you," Chanyeol mumbled in his sleep. "I love you so much."

Kyungsoo's heart skipped two beats. His eyes widened. He turned to face Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol looked like he was about to cry, albeit it being sleep talk. "Say something…" he whispered.

Something felt caught up in Kyungsoo's chest.

Chanyeol's words weren't directed at him. Kyungsoo wished they were. He wanted them to be directed at him. 

He wanted those words. He wanted to bottle them up, pocket them and keep them for himself. 

 

 

Fall came around, and Luhan left. It was almost a natural course of event. 

A few weeks later, Kyungsoo secretly sneaked out at the dead of night to make a call from a public phone.

"Ge," Kyungsoo said after the beep. "You were right, I wasn't ready. I wasn't fucking ready. I want to go back. I want to jump. I can't remember how. _Tell me how_. I-I vaguely remember blue apples. It makes no sense–"

 

Luhan texted Kyungsoo back about a week later about his voicemail, saying that he didn't know what Kyungsoo was talking about and if he should get his eyes checked because blue apples?

 

"Where's your ring?"

Kyungsoo knew that the Kyungsoo before he arrived lost it. He didn't remember how or when. He just knew he lost it. He figured this was part of the game. The memories he'd lost got replaced by the memories he had as the Kyungsoo in this world and things got a little more muddled in the process. The Kyungsoo that Chanyeol had known was probably gone though.

"I— we need to get ready to go. Joonmyun-hyung is coming in. You should put some pants on."

"I haven't seen the ring for a long time," Chanyeol said. "Where's… I…"

Kyungsoo grabbed Chanyeol's jacket with a heavy heart and something stuck in his throat. "Come on. We have practice."

 

 

Chanyeol still wore his ring and still talked to and about Kyungsoo all the time. Kyungsoo this, Kyungsoo that. He did things for Kyungsoo too. He'd bring towels and bottles of water to him after every practice. 

He also kept mumbling things in his sleep that made Kyungsoo want to break down and cry.

But it was all for some other Kyungsoo, he told himself. Some other Kyungsoo Chanyeol had fallen in love with.

 

 

Why hadn't it occurred to Kyungsoo before? That he would end up in a world where he had to pick up feelings that he couldn't differentiate – feelings that could either be his or not his, and then figure out whether he was even the true recipient of another person's feelings?

Granted, Kyungsoo was not all that unalike in most worlds, but the smallest details could still make a difference. 

He wondered if falling in love with Chanyeol was a small detail, or something that was much more.

 

 

He started having dreams about when they were trainees.

They were so close. The bestest friends. They knew each other inside out. Their smiles and laughter were natural. Their hands fit perfectly together. Their voices harmonized phenomenally. 

Kyungsoo woke up with cold sweat on his forehead. 

_It couldn't be a small detail_ , he told himself.

It just couldn't be a fucking small detail.

 

 

He couldn't remember anymore what he had done in world sixty. He could vaguely remember pigeons and a park. But that was it. 

He wondered how deer hybrid Luhan was doing. He wondered how much longer he could still remember his agent. 

Kyungsoo stayed quiet and downcast for the whole day. By the end of it, he found himself just wondering how the Luhan from this world was faring.

 

 

Kyungsoo found himself indulging in the reality of this world. To him, it was supposed to be real after all. This was his last shot. He didn't want to go for world sixty-two. Sixty-two? Was it? He wasn't sure anymore. Everything was a blur.

He had bet everything he had left on this world, right? He wasn't going anywhere anymore. And it wasn't like he remembered how to travel to the next universe anyway.

 

Here he was, trembling and scared but also giving his all to reflect Chanyeol's affection.

He kissed Chanyeol one night when they were watching a movie. Their foreheads were pressed together, and Kyungsoo's hand was on the other's thigh, squeezing, caressing.

He liked Chanyeol a lot. That much he'd admit to himself, that much he'd think were still his own feelings, and not the ghost of another Kyungsoo's. 

Chanyeol made him feel comfortable. Chanyeol made him feel wanted. Even after everything Kyungsoo did not do. Even after everything Kyungsoo made Chanyeol feel.

 

He rode Chanyeol, moonlight on his back, moonlight on Chanyeol's blushing face. Kyungsoo pushed the other down, and then sat on his dick and took it all in, letting the stretch burn. Kyungsoo was breathing hard, he wasn't thinking straight. He moaned Chanyeol's name over and over again while Chanyeol stayed quiet, huffing small puffs of air. His face was flushed so red, and his affection reflected from his eyes.

It was enough to mess up Kyungsoo's emotions. But, somehow, that made him want to cling to this even more. He tightened his grip and closed his eyes as he came.

 

 

After the comeback in 2015, after Tao had left, Chanyeol became a mess that was harder to untangle. 

He was screaming about deleting his Instagram account. He was locking himself in his room and shouting. He was sobbing on Kyungsoo's shoulder. He was asking what the fuck went wrong, what was happening to the fucking fam, what was happening to _we are fucking one_ because was it now _we are one fucking countdown_? Because what a joke! They were fucking twelve, they were fucking eleven, they were fucking ten, they were fucking _fucking_ nine now.

Kyungsoo kissed Chanyeol's tears away, he held Chanyeol close to his chest. He wished he was more articulate so he could comfort him. He wished he could at least tell him that he'd be here forever.

But forever was a hard concept, and the more Kyungsoo thought about it, the more he thought he'd already broken it once before.

He found himself saying _sorry_ in the softest voice he'd ever muster, instead.

 

 

"Why aren't you upset? Weren't you close with Kris too? Luhan? Tao? Why the fuck aren't you upset? Why do you look like you're fucking okay, why don't you feel anything, why do I have to keep guessing what's on your fucking mind? Why won't you _say something_?"

Kyungsoo was not fucking okay.

"I'm starting to believe I've misunderstood you. Right from the beginning. I thought— fuck. I thought you liked me back. A lot. You know? You used to say things. You used to hold my hand after practice and you used to smile so much at me and you used to— You used to say it was comfortable, being with me. Maybe I just talk too much. Maybe I'm just believing in too many things that I have absolutely no real solid grasp on. Maybe I should just shut the fuck up. How about that? You always find everyone noisy. Maybe that's all I am to you. Noise. Nothing but fucking noise."

_That's not true_ , Kyungsoo wanted to say, but his voice had been robbed.

That night Kyungsoo slept by himself, curled up into a ball, sobbing quietly.

 

But Chanyeol didn't stop, despite everything. He would still talk about Kyungsoo whenever he had an opportunity to do so. Late night radio shows. Between the lines of lyrics. Covers of some of Kyungsoo's favourite songs. Live on stage. Live off stage. Live off record. He kissed Kyungsoo anyways, in the dark, in the rain, in the wind, in the snow. He would talk to Kyungsoo about songs, about movies, about feelings, about how he thought Kyungsoo was doing on stage, about how he loved, loved, loved Kyungsoo to bits.

He was wholly dedicated. It was as if he sold his soul to Kyungsoo. And even if he realised that Kyungsoo was unhealthier than the devil, he didn't mind. He loved Kyungsoo so much, so much that Kyungsoo thought there was no way anyone could love any more. Yet it wasn't smothering either. Chanyeol was like that.

And Chanyeol wasn't like that to anyone else.

Kyungsoo wanted to be like that for Chanyeol too.

 

Kyungsoo finally fell in love, thoroughly, _completely_ with him, late 2015. Maybe sometime before. But he only realised a little later, when Chanyeol was rehearsing _sing for you_ with Kyungsoo late at night. 

 

Some emotional baggage had been lifted. Kyungsoo couldn't pinpoint what it was anymore, but he felt as light as the snow falling outside. 

He simply looked at Chanyeol talking to a crowd of fangirls waving lightsticks, and he fell in love. He only looked at Chanyeol play the guitar and he couldn't take his eyes off of him. 

His heart swelled, his feelings were caught up in his throat, the adrenaline overwhelming and bursting at the seams.

 

Things were much smoother afterwards. They practiced together all the time. They brought each other food in the middle of the night, they leaned against one another to sleep on the long rides to and from airports, hotels, dorms, home. 

Kyungsoo never felt happier.

 

 

 

Chanyeol lost his ring one day. At some fan-meeting or something. He told Kyungsoo he wasn't sure when it was. He had a perplexed look in his eyes. 

And ever since then, he looked a little more lost. A little more airheaded. Kyungsoo would kiss him and he wouldn't really kiss back. He would be thinking about something else, looking somewhere else.

A monster and luck themed comeback was on its way. The pressure of working at the peak of a busy season drained the energy out of both of them. Kyungsoo wondered if Chanyeol might just be knackered and exhausted. He himself was having difficulties trying to concentrate.

So for the moment, he just kissed more. Touched more. Did more. Didn't really ask about it.

 

After the comeback, things were only busier, but Kyungsoo found some time to squeeze Chanyeol's thigh, rub his back, pat his head, slide an arm around the other's, rest his head against his shoulder, grab his hand and lace their fingers, any time he could. Just to show he was there.

And at night when he snuck into Chanyeol's bed, he peppered him with kisses and tried relaxing Chanyeol, the way Chanyeol would when Kyungsoo had felt tense or nervous.

 

Kyungsoo noticed that Chanyeol started listening to his iPod more often than before, secluding himself in corners and sometimes even closets.

"What are you listening to?"

"Songs."

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. "You _could_ be more specific."

"Songs from my favourites list."

"Can I listen in?"

Chanyeol smiled and held an ear-bud out. "Songs can tell a lot about me."

"Uh-huh." Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. It was a strange thing to say.

 

Chanyeol bumped into Baekhyun on the way back stage and almost made his hyung roll down the stairs.

"Watch it."

"Sorry, didn't see you."

"Oh come on, I was only like, two steps down."

"That makes the whole difference, hyung," Sehun said.

Jongdae, who was walking behind them, commented that Chanyeol looked a little pale.

Chanyeol was definitely acting strange. Kyungsoo wondered if it was because Chanyeol had lost his ring and was upset about it.

Kyungsoo knew how much the ring meant to him. He looked down at his bare fingers. He suddenly wished he still had his own. 

He should have been more careful. He shouldn't have taken it for granted. 

 

 

Kyungsoo watched as Chanyeol sat at the window, listening to his ipod again. He hadn't been on his computer composing songs, late at night after practice, hadn't been goofing around with Sehun like he usually would or hadn't asked if anyone watched the episode of One Piece with Trafalgar Law's backstory.

He'd be on his phone a lot instead. He'd look at his Instagram newsfeed but wouldn't post. He'd look through all the fans' comments yet wouldn't say a thing. 

Kyungsoo found it extremely hard to read Chanyeol, and it was killing him more than he could admit.

 

 

He kissed Chanyeol. He pressed his lips against the other's nose, forehead, hair. He had a finger twirling with the hem of Chanyeol's shirt, unsure and hesitant.

Chanyeol moaned. His hand trembled and wavered for a while before he held onto Kyungsoo's shoulders and returned the kiss. 

 

Kyungsoo fingered him, sucked him, left a trail of affectionate kisses everywhere he could reach, pressing lightly against Chanyeol's tummy, taking in the smell of Chanyeol's inner thigh, letting his nose sink into it as he bit and soothed. He rocked his body against Chanyeol. He wrapped his arms around Chanyeol. He inhaled, exhaled, _breathed_ Chanyeol, gasped his name over and over. 

Chanyeol was quiet. It was usually like that – he was always shier and more subdued during sex, but tonight it felt a little different.

It felt like it was the first time for both of them. 

 

 

"I'm really worried about Chanyeol, ge," Kyungsoo told Luhan over the phone.

He hadn't contacted him in a long time, and that was a given considering their situations, but things were already starting to become only a part of a distant past. It took Kyungsoo forever to find a phone number and here it was, and here Luhan was, at the end of the other line, so close yet so far. 

"I suggest you snoop around his stuff a little more if you really feel restless about it," Luhan replied, nonchalant as ever. "Dig through his underwear drawer or something."

"I already had access _to_ his underwear. I don't think whatever is bothering him has physical evidence."

"Yeah, well, I've got some experience with some of these things, and I can assure you snooping around a little wouldn't hurt. Also, did you forget the word drawer, or did you just blurt out too much information?" 

"No," Kyungsoo said. "Your Korean just deteriorated. And snooping around is usually a sign of distrust. What great advice you give." Someone's footsteps resounded in the hall. So Kyungsoo lowered his voice and said, "Well, whatever. I have to go. Thanks anyways, ge."

"Anytime, Soo."

 

 

Unceremoniously, Chanyeol became playful again. It was as if the dark clouds had parted away and nothing had happened. 

Chanyeol would tease Kyungsoo on stage again. He would initiate conversations like before, mention Kyungsoo everywhere. Talk about all the tidbits about Kyungsoo's life even when no one asked. Rest his head on Kyungsoo's shoulder even though he was the taller one. Squish his face against Kyungsoo's back. Kiss him languidly after recordings. 

There were also new things. Chanyeol would hold him closer, a hand behind Kyungsoo's neck, the other at the small of his back – gentle yet firm – while he fucked him slow. He also kissed differently. He kissed Kyungsoo with little presses at a time before holding one long and steady, his hands cupping Kyungsoo's cheeks very softly.

Though Kyungsoo had let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding, he was still worried. He still thought something was up. He was still trying to read Chanyeol.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo found the answers to his unspoken queries in Chanyeol's knapsack. 

He didn't purposefully look for them; he was only getting towels and water bottles that Chanyeol said he had packed.

Instead, he had fished out two notebooks with blue apples stamped over the cover. One of them had his name on it, in a handwriting he slowly recognised as his own.

 

 

 

The first page had a list of three items. 

 

World Zero.

Chanyeol. 

Find him, tell him I love him.

 

 

 

 

Before Kyungsoo knew it, large tears burst from his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. He surprised himself with a loud sob, and then he coughed over a hiccup. His hands trembled, his heart shivered. The memories came crashing into him with so much force he almost couldn't breathe, and he had to brace himself, palms and knees on the floor.

A moment later, Chanyeol stalked in, completely unsuspecting.

"Hey Soo— what's taking you so long, did you find the towels— shit are you— shit?? You're crying? What—" Chanyeol's gaze fell onto the open notebook in front of Kyungsoo.

 

 

 

 

They read through the books together. One of them was Kyungsoo's. The other was Chanyeol's. Kyungsoo travelled looking for Chanyeol. Chanyeol travelled searching for Kyungsoo. 

They found overlaps in the worlds they trekked in. Baekhyun had been pregnant in one of Chanyeol's worlds too, and he said that Baekhyun had been the most annoying proud Dad with a capital D ever to exist. He kept asking people to look at his newborn child, kept telling people his boy was the cutest in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Kyungsoo had been Baekhyun's doctor in that world, and Chanyeol had been a neighbour who was so done with Baekhyun.

Kyungsoo's notebook had pages torn so they couldn't really match everything up, but they did conclude a few things.

They discovered that the most consistent person was Yixing who was a nurse in almost every universe. And Joonmyeon a really rich kid.

Kris was the other constant – he was always Chanyeol's best friend. In the one where Kyungsoo knew Kris as a firefighter, Chanyeol had died in the fire in order to travel to the next world because somehow he hadn't been able to find Kyungsoo.

He had left it with a heavy heart, Chanyeol explained. He said he made a lot of good friends in that world. A lot of them he wished he could keep, but couldn't.

 

 

Chanyeol travelled through worlds by burning himself with fire. Kyungsoo was thrown into another world whenever something hit him, brain-shatteringly hard. One had to die a certain way to go into the transit world.

The lame superpowers from this world that their companies associated them with were unnervingly accurate. 

 

 

"Why did you give up?" Chanyeol asked.

"I didn't want to… cease to exist everywhere I went just because I couldn't find the fate I wanted. Since there was a likelihood I was just arriving at the wrong _time_ every time, I'd also be ruining the chances for the _me_ to meet _the you_ in that world. What if you came in after I had just jumped into the tracks? The thought of it was killing me slowly. I mean - I was erasing the possibility of you and me," Kyungsoo sighed. "I guess... it never occurred to me that you'd be a traveller too." He chuckled lightly.

"We kept missing each other," Chanyeol replied, in a soft murmur. 

 

 

"You think if we didn't travel so much, we would have been together in all of the worlds?"

"I suppose so," Kyungsoo said.

"You only suppose so," Chanyeol said.

"That's because… we weren't, in our starting worlds."

Chanyeol went silent. "Okay, but every other world?"

"We don't have to be together in all of the worlds as long as we're together in this one," Kyungsoo suggested.

 

 

"I had a crush on you in my initial world," Chanyeol admitted. "I didn't confess to you. We weren't together yet."

"In mine, I think it was more complicated than that," Kyungsoo said. 

"What do you mean?" Chanyeol narrowed his eyes.

"I had problems voicing my thoughts and feelings, which honestly, is the same for me even now," Kyungsoo admitted. "I was already with you in my first world, I just couldn't tell you I loved you before it was too late."

"What happened to me?" Chanyeol asked.

Kyungsoo swallowed hard. 

"Nothing happened to you. I was just. Pushing you away from a truck that couldn't brake." 

 

It dawned on Chanyeol.

"You…" A quiet tear rolled down on Chanyeol's face, and he covered his mouth with his hands, not breaking eye contact with Kyungsoo. 

 

 

 

"How did you find out about the game?" Kyungsoo asked. "Did you just… burn yourself accidentally? Light yourself up?"

Chanyeol went silent for a few moments. 

"You died in a fire," he whispered. "I was trying to save you."

 

 

 

"How much do you know about the you from this world?" Kyungsoo asked because he remembered it took him a while to orient himself. It took him a while to get used to inane working schedules and practices at ungodly hours of the night.

"I think I've got everything now," Chanyeol explained. "I listened to my own music to find out who I was. I listened to our group's songs, and I listened to you sing. It's my way of orientation. It works wonders. I fell in love with you all over again. How did you do your orientations?"

Kyungsoo bit his lower lip. "I just went along, looked for familiar faces, and I asked around for Chanyeol a lot, in the previous worlds. Looked at my phone and searched the Internet, etcetera."

"But you didn't in this world," Chanyeol said, his voice turning soft. "I should have guessed this was your last world. You'd forgotten about your goal and the game rules after all. You weren't playing anymore. Just struggling with fading memories."

Kyungsoo hid his face with his hands.

Chanyeol eyed him curiously. "What's wrong?"

"Was I too pushy when I kept kissing you a-and…" Kyungsoo blushed red, "…after you'd just arrive?" Kyungsoo asked, grimacing a little. "I mean… as much as you know the Kyungsoo from your initial world, I am still… a stranger. At least, up until you fully merge with the memories of this world."

Chanyeol smiled. "You were really gentle, Kyungsoo. Give yourself some credits. You knew something was wrong. You knew you had to be careful. And I knew you knew, so I trusted you." 

 

 

"And then you found my notebook..." Kyungsoo murmured.

"It was exhilarating," Chanyeol laughed. His eyes widened and then he shook the incredulity away. "It blew my mind. I kept telling myself, _of course you were a traveller_! I just needed to find the actual traveller, haha. I was one step closer and it was great!"

Kyungsoo smiled. "And you weren't sure if this.... if I was the traveller?"

"I didn't... but honestly, I would have stayed anyways. You were bound to come around, right?"

 

 

"Who was your agent?" Kyungsoo asked.

They were listening to Chanyeol's ipod together again, one ear-bud each.

"Luhan," Chanyeol answered. "He was a deer-hybrid." 

Kyungsoo smiled. "How was he, last time you him?"

"So he was your agent too?" Chanyeol asked, his eyes widening. Kyungsoo nodded. Chanyeol then slumped his shoulders.

"He wasn't well. He looked pale," Chanyeol said with a sigh. "Now that I think in retrospective, I think he knew."

"Knew…?"

"Knew that we were looking for each other, but he couldn't tell. Maybe because of the rules. Agents might have their own set of rules they need to abide to."

Kyungsoo thought a bit.

"What do you think about the Luhan in this world?" Chanyeol then asked. "I haven't really talked to him after he left."

"He's almost exactly the same. Minus the blue apples."

Chanyeol nodded. "You think he might be our guardian angel?"

"It's a nice thought," Kyungsoo nodded.

 

 

"So. Are you going to fulfil your original purpose then, Do Kyungsoo?"

Kyungsoo smiled and Chanyeol held his breath.

"You think I've already confessed, somewhere in another world we both haven't been in?"

"It's possible. But the question is whether you'd do it in this world too. Whether you'd do it, knowing you've travelled so many worlds just to do so."

"I will. I most definitely will."

Chanyeol bit his lip as his mouth quirked into a smile. "Well, what's keeping you?"

 

 

 

Kyungsoo closed his eyes, listened to their breaths, leaned in, pressed his forehead against the other's, and kissed him gently. 

There was a pause in the air. The kiss lingered. Adrenaline built up in their chests. Pent-up feelings slowly seeped through. Magic tingled on their lips. 

 

"I love you Chanyeol," Kyungsoo then whispered against the other's mouth, finally speaking from the depths of his heart.


End file.
